The Bristol Games Hub, home to a range of indie studios and freelance coders

6.08pm BST

So just before I end my live blog, Dan Page from Opposable Games has told me about a virtual reality developer meet-up he's organising. This is a meeting about virtual reality, not one that's happening inside virtual reality.

"The first ever SouthWest Virtual Reality Meetup is scheduled for 29 July upstairs at The Big Chill Bar, 15 Small Street, Bristol," says Dan. "We'll be giving folks the chance to ask questions and hear short talks from industry leaders, interact with exciting new hardware and socialise with fellow VR enthusiasts. Expect Oculus Rifts, Razer Hydras, Leap Motion controllers and maybe, just maybe, a DK2."

How to make a news game in five steps

Auroch Digital has made a series of news games, analysing real-world stories like Syria (Endgame: Syria) and the drugs war in Mexico (NarcoGuerra). Last month the studio was invited to speak at the News Game Hackathon, a kind of current affairs game jam, organised by independent game studio, the Good Evil.

The Guardian was there, along with several other major news organisations, and there was a strong belief that games have an important and innovative role in the future of journalism.

So how should you approach making a news game? Here's a five-step guide:

Choose the right subject

"You need to choose a topic where you can deliver something that the linear media cannot or is not," says Rawlings. This may be a local story that you know a lot about and isn't getting coverage elsewhere, or a big story that you feel could be explored through a game.

"Most people producing news games right now are amateurs rather than journalists," says Rawlings. "There was one produced recently around the situation in Ukraine, it was just an Angry Birds-style game where you're throwing things at various political figures. It was quite fun, more of a satirical cartoon than a news game, and there's nothing wrong with that."

It's also important to bear development process in mind. If the story is going to pass in a couple of days, it's unlikely you'll be able to produce a game in time.

Make the most of interactivity

"It's all about replayability," says Rawlings. "Games can put you in the shoes of someone you're not. The idea behind Endgame: Syria was that there are lots of different competing factions, so the player can take one set of decisions, see the outcome, then take another."

Choose the right platform

"If you want rapid dessiminaton, the web is still the best way," says Rawlings. Some form of Javascript or HTML 5 is the best bet at the moment. We've developed smart phone apps, but the Apple App Store takes seven days. The Android store is better, you can pass something through in a couple of hours, but the web is immediate."

"The problem with HTML 5 is, it's a comparatively new protocol. There are packages like GameMaker: Studio that would allow you to make something comparatively quickly, but it's still very tech heavy. That's one of the issues."

"If you're not a developer, ideally you should find one to work with. Otherwise you need to re-engineer something that's already out there. Loads of people publish free Java Script tutorials - in fact, the game that the Guardian's writer made at the News Hackathon, took a Flappy Bird tutotrial from the web and re-engineered it as something else. News does that all the time – news takes popular catchphrases and uses them to make a catchy headline. Using popular tropes is a way to communicate with people."

There's also the interactive story creator, Twine, but Rawlings wants to see the development of tools that can help journalists with no experience of coding to produce a news game within a couple of hours.

Market it though social media and on game sites

"There's a still a novelty factor to news games," says Rawlings. "If you wrote an essay about Prism on your blog, it's going to be hard to get traction unless you're saying something remarkable. But if you did a game about Prism, that's unusual.

"There are plenty of sites like Kongregate where you can post HTML objects, so you can explore those. Also, social media is very important. Even though we we couldn't distribute Endgame: Syria on the Apple App Store, we had a version on Facebook, we had an Android version, we had a free download version on sites like Indiecade. You need to distribute widely."

Be prepared to defend your work

"When you make a news game you into into a whole new world of controversy," says Rawlings. "When we released Endgame, we had people telling us that we were clearly on the side of the regime because the game was difficult so we were trying to put people off siding with the rebels; then we had people saying that, because you play o the rebel side, the game is pro-rebel.

"so you hit all those journalistic issues to do with bias, but then you also hit the issue of it being a game. That happened a lot with Narco – people said 'how dare you treat this serious issue as a game'. You have to be prepared to stand by your work, even more than if you'd have written a song or an essay. You need to say, no, a game can be sensitive to the material."

Updated at 4.46pm BST

3.18pm BST

Another hour, another interview!

Just played the brilliant Timmy Bibble's Friendship Club, an intense local multiplayer arena shooter, set in the brain of a small boy. Originally created by two small studios – Force of Habit and Clockwork Cuckoo – for last year's Tiga Game Jam, it's currently going through the Steam Greenlight process (here's the page), with an eye to release on Early Access.

"The player characters are Timmy's imaginary friends," explains Nick Dymond, one half of Force of Habit. "When he goes to sleep each night, they battle it out to be his favourite."

The battles take place in a series of procedurally generated rooms, all based around different childhood themes. "It has the logic of a dream world," says artist Tom Boot. "You'll walk from one memory into another. There are elements of books that Timmy has read and music he's heard, it's a psychedelic mish-mash."

"The art style is influenced by Mary Blair, a key Disney artist of the fities," continues artist Sophie Humphries. "She worked on Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan... it's very much guided by children's illustrations. She used lots of bright colours."

It's frantic stuff – all the bullets you fire bounce endlessly around the screen, so it quickly becomes a crazed bullet hell challenge just to stay alive. There's no re-spawning, so rounds are over very quickly, giving a super intensity to the action. The team was also inspired by the way that people often modify the rules of games when they're playing at home together, so the menu allows for a range of custom options. You can choose to play a series of rounds at 25 percent of the normal speed, for example, giving it a "bullet time" effect. There's also a headbutts only mode, aping the physical chaos of GoldenEye's famous "slaps" option.

The controls are ultra precise, the aiming and movement handled in typical arena-style twin stick fashion. To be honest, it has digital console release written all over it, so hopefully Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo will cotton on fast.

An early version of the game has been released through the GameJolt widget and it is now being rebuilt with a new tools system. I want to play it again. Right now. Bring it back to the office at once!

Updated at 3.29pm BST

2.35pm BST

A screenshot of Tangiers, a dark, surreal open-world adventure, influenced by Thief and William S Burroughs

I've just been speaking to Alex Harvey from local development studio Andalusian. The four-person team successfully Kickstarted the sandbox stealth game Tangiers last summer, and now the project is in closed beta.

"It's basically Thief meets William S Burroughs," says Harvey. "It's an emergent, immersive sim with Looking Glass-style gameplay, but it's also a love letter to 20th century avant garde from Dada to JG Ballard via Throbbing Gristle. I put everything I liked into a big melting pot and this is what came out at the end."

There's a sort of Eastern European seventies sci-fi movie look about the minimalist visuals – all darkness and looming shadows. Similarly, the storyline is oblique and nihilistic: in fact you don't find out much at to begin with, just that you have to find five beings and disopose of them somehow.

"It's up to you to do that, however you like and in whatever order you like," says Harvey. "If you invest more into the game in terms of finding audio logs and overhearing conversations, then the purpose and your relationship to this bizarre world becomes more apparent."

The game is written in Unity, the more-or-less omnipresent 3D development engine, with a few extra plug-ins. "Most of the coding is done in a visual system called Antares Universe, which massively streamlines debugging - it lets us code the game while we're playing. We're also using an editor called Pro-Builder to construct the world."

Tangiers is due for release via Steam later this year.

1.46pm BST

Just eating an amazing jerk chicken wrap from the deli around the corner!

Here's a photo of the Bristol Games Hub in the 1910s (it's the building with the Master Polish sign). The area has changed a fair bit. For example, almost no one is wearing sailor suits now. It's not
that Shoreditch.

Updated at 1.10pm BST

12.30pm BST

Camelina Caper – a game about producing GM crops that can supply omega oils, thereby alleviating pressure on cod stocks

What do we do about the growing market for omega-3 fish oils when fish stocks are rapidly diminishing? Auroch Digital has just released Camelina Caper, a science game created for Rothamsted Research, about an alternative source of omega-3 fish oils.

Rothamsted has produced a genetically modified version of the common Camelina crop, which produces a seed that contains the molecules necessary for the production of omega-3 fish oils. In the game, you control a fish that has to explore the ocean, collecting the elements needed to produce a molecule of omega-3 fish oil, while avoiding jelly fish.

"It illustrates the science of what's happening here," explains Auroch co-founder, Tomas Rawlings. "In nature, the fish have to collect all these parts to make the omega-3 fish oil, in the GM seed you get them all in one place."

Rothamsted Research is doing research towards developing sustainable sources of omega-3 fish oils. Using genetic modification Rothamsted scientists have developed Camelina plants, which when grown in the glass house, can produce omega-3 fish oils in their seeds. The scientists have just started a field trial to test the performance of the plant in real environmental conditions. The research institute is speaking about the process at the Cheltenham Science Festival this week. Eventually, the plan is to provide an alternative sustainable source of omega-3 fish oils that could potentially be used by the fish farming and fish feed industry.

So why has Rothamstead commissioned a game to explain the process? Is it about generating positive PR in the controversial area of GM crops? "There is a sustainability question," says Rawlings. "If we want to have omega-3 fish oils in our diets through the consumption of fish, the majority of which come from fish farms, there has to be other solutions and this points to one possible GM solution."

"In science communication, there are very different audiences who have different points of contact. There is a growing, especially younger audience of people for whom games i s the primary medium, it's the way they think about and understand the world. Games is a natural language for them. So just as making a documentary is a way of reaching one group, and writing a book is a way of getting another group, making a game gets somebody else still.

"There are also also inherent advantages in using games to convey scientific issues. You can display information in gameplay that gives users a different understanding. With out news game, Endgame: Syria, players could re-play and take different decisions and explore the outcome - it's a non-linear way of exploring a subject."

The game is now available for free on the Apple and Google app stores.

Updated at 1.45pm BST

11.36am BST

11.07am BST

A 360 degree Vine of the Bristol Games Hub. It's a little quiet today as one of the studios, Lo-Fi Games, has decamped to Gran Canaria for the summer...

11.01am BST

So just a little background on the Bristol Games Hub. It's essentially an affordable open office space for small game development studios and lone freelancers.

Two years ago, local developers Auroch Digital and Opposable Games were looking for office space in the city centre and decided to pool resources. They discovered an office block being renovated in Stokes Croft, a previously dilapidated area of Bristol now being rejuvenated into something of a media hub. The landlords were happy to negotiate on terms, allowing Auroch and Opposable to rent on a desk-by-desk basis rather than committing many thousands to a conventional renting agreement.

Co-founders Ben Trewhella and Tomas and Debbie Rawlings rent desks and then sub-let them to developers with a small overheads charge. "It's very easy for developers to pop in and out," says Thomas. "We don't require them to sign contracts: they come in and pay for the month they're using the space.

"If they have a big project on, they can bring in some more people and take a few extra desks, then slim down later. On top of that we run monthly events. We have a Unity developers group, we have a board game group, a social group for students and anyone interested in making games. We're looking at starting a marketing breakfast where indie devs can get together and discuss ideas. It's been an exciting journey."

Right now, there are 34 staff taking up space in the building, which is being reonvated around them – the hub can accomodate around 30 more. It's mostly open plan, too, and developers often share staff and resources. "The idea is collaborative work," says Debbie. "We have this concept that we borrowed from the Pervasive Media Studio called 'interruptability'. The hub is designed for developers who are happy to chat, to share experiences and knowledge."

Updated at 3.20pm BST

10.52am BST

And of course, this wouldn't be Bristol without a Banksy. This one is just over the road from the Games Hub...

10.22am BST

It's a sunny Thursday in the south west of England, and I'm at the Bristol Games Hub in the city's Stokes Croft area. Described as the Shoreditch of Bristol, this region just off the city centre is undergoing major rejuvenation at the moment. Games are a part of it.